


skating in circles (with no way to stop)

by shireness



Series: skating in circles (with no way to stop) [1]
Category: Persuasion - Jane Austen
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Irresponsible Social Distancing, Persuasion: Pandemic Edition, Snowed In, hockey!Frederick, oh no they'll have to talk through their feelings!, whatever shall we do!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:01:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23901253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shireness/pseuds/shireness
Summary: Anne Elliot likes her life just the way it is. The last thing she needs is her handsome, charming, professional hockey player ex... something to show up during lockdown and prove just how wrong she is about that.
Relationships: Anne Elliot/Frederick Wentworth
Series: skating in circles (with no way to stop) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931137
Comments: 26
Kudos: 186





	skating in circles (with no way to stop)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WelpThisIsHappening](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WelpThisIsHappening/gifts).



> For Laura, who is going a bit stir-crazy during the NHL break. Also because me having any thoughts at all about "what would hockey-flavored Persuasion look like?" is her fault. Enjoy, darling!
> 
> Rated T for language. Special thanks to @snidgetsafan for he last minute beta-skills, which are always invaluable. Any hockey-type errors, if they exist, are my own. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Social distancing almost doesn’t seem so bad in weather like this, the snow outside Anne’s window falling in huge flakes more furiously each second. Weather like this is designed for staying inside, curled up in an armchair with a cup of tea and a soft knitted afghan. It’s almost enough to soothe the little voice in her head that chides her for not working; there’s genuinely little for Anne to do from home as a school nurse, beyond writing and filing the reports she usually puts off until the end of the year, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling guilty at not doing more. Even if she isn’t expected to. Even if she is actually supposed to bunker down. 

It’s been odd, adjusting to a life of jigsaw puzzles and overly involved embroidery projects and all the books she swore she’d read two years ago and never did. Hell, she’s even taken up online archiving projects after an old friend from school sent her a link, just for something to do. Her social life hasn’t particularly suffered; she’s a transplant to this town, anyways, drawn back by the memories of one beautiful, peaceful year, only really meeting with folks from work or her old roommate, and infrequently at that. Every few days, she’ll go through the motions of calling her sister Mary just so the younger woman can chatter away about all her own complaints; truthfully, that’s all the socializing she can handle. Anne has always kept to herself, and usually even likes it; the only difference now is that it’s by governor’s decree, not by her own introverted preferences. 

Way out here, it’s not surprising that the power eventually goes out; it’s not uncommon, when the snow gets too heavy on the power lines in heavy storms like this. This is exactly why she has a generator - it’s all but a necessity when you’re living here year-round. Sure enough, the generator roars to life a moment later - an auditory nuisance, for sure, but a necessary one when you like such things as central electric heating and wifi and refrigerated items not spoiling. 

The crunch of snow under tires outside her little cottage is more surprising, however, especially under the circumstances. She hasn’t ordered takeout, or grocery delivery; there’s no reason anyone should be pulling up to her house, especially in this weather. Peeking out the window reveals the kind of SUV only people with money buy, and the last person in the world she ever expected to see climbing out of it; she’d almost think it a hallucination brought on by isolation, if she hadn’t already seen him from a distance at the grocery store, earlier in the week. 

Anne barely has a chance to pull herself together before the knock at the door sounds, bouncing off the walls of her little house. Opening the door reveals Frederick Wentworth, the dream she put away nigh on nine years ago, standing on her stoop in a ridiculous hat and a peacoat that’s not remotely suited to the practicalities of winter in rural New Hampshire. 

“Believe me, I hate this just as much, if not more, than you do,” he begins, plowing forward before Anne can even remember to reassure him that it’s not true, “but my power’s out, and I need your help.”

As it turns out, Frederick - her handsome, charming, professional hockey player ex… something - is all that’s required to upset any equilibrium the snow might have brought. 

———

Frederick Wentworth hadn’t intended to return to Kellynch, New Hampshire. Then again, he hadn’t intended to be sitting out indefinitely with the rest of the league because of the current pandemic.

New York just feels _odd_ like this, the tourists all gone, the streets practically empty. Fred has never credited himself as one of those maniacs who claim that New York is the only city in the world, and there’s nothing like it; he’d been happy in a small town, and he’ll be happy in a different city if the worst happens and he ends up traded. That’s the way these things work. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t formed opinions over the last years about how this city is _supposed_ to feel, and it sure as hell ain’t this. 

So he gets in his car, arranges for a rental house, and drives up to Kellynch. If nothing else, he hopes it will be easier to look outside in a place he’d expect to see barely a soul even under the best conditions. Nothing ever happens in Kellynch, after all; maybe that will include the virus too.

(Well, that’s a lie. Exactly two things have ever happened to Kellynch, and he’s one of them. The other… if they’re very, very lucky, they’ll never have to deal with egotistical directors and their ilk again. Even pretty, quiet brunettes aren’t worth that trouble; in fact, sometimes, they make things worse.)

The irony to all this is that usually, Frederick craves a little bit of solitude. He spends essentially his entire life around the same group of guys, at practice and in games and _especially_ on the road, when he’s got to share a hotel room to boot. Hell, he even _lived_ with them for years, sharing an apartment with Harville and Benwick. A man can be forgiven for wanting some time to himself.

And he’d gotten it, at least for a while. Harvey had met his now-wife and moved out, and now Benwick’s got a girlfriend who giggles and his own place to giggle with her in or whatever. Fred can finally come home and just collapse in the closest thing to silence one ever gets in New York, and truthfully, he’s been enjoying every moment of it.

There’s a difference, though, in solitude on your own terms and solitude on others’ terms, and Frederick can’t help but feel lonely as he remembers that in the middle of all this, his friends and teammates are cozied up with those they love, and he’s all by himself in the empty apartment he once yearned for. In Kellynch, at least, it’s a solitude of his own making; his parents are long gone, Sophie out in Virginia with her husband, and for the most part, he hasn’t talked to his old school friends in years. There won’t be this constant awareness of all the people he can’t see if there’s no one about that he’d want to. 

Maybe he ought to try dating again, he thinks as he drives. Obviously, there’s nothing to be done in the moment, what with social distancing and impending stay-at-home orders, but maybe later. Maybe Harvey’s wife has friends he’d like - he’s always liked Amelia and her steady personality and good-natured humor, so unlike Benwick’s high-maintenance Louisa and her ear-piercing squeals. Her friends have got to be similar, and Amelia would probably even be kind enough not to make him sound completely desperate. 

It’s not that he hasn’t found anyone interested in the past years; he’s got a decent face, after all, and a better paycheck. But the thing about that face and that paycheck is that it’s hard to trust that any woman is interested in _him_ , him alone, the person he is without all that. It’s not a great way to live, but it’s hard to move past. 

There’s also the matter of the pretty quiet brunette who came to Kellynch when he was 16, seized his heart, and never really gave it back. Walter Eliot may have been an asshole - every cliche of the self-absorbed Hollywood director, convinced that their town was “quaint” and “just what he needed” to spark inspiration while demanding kowtowing and wrecking havoc wherever he went - but his daughter, Anne, had been of a different mold altogether. He’d met her at the annual Fourth of July parade, of all places. It was obvious she hadn’t intended to be noticed; indeed, she’d blushed and done her best to fade into the background while her father and older sister had made some kind of scene that Frederick can’t honestly remember anymore. He’d been too intrigued - and later, enchanted - by Anne to pay much attention to the rest of the fiasco she’d called a family. 

She’d probably felt then the same as he feels about people now - some strange boy coming up to her out of nowhere with mini-donuts, someone she’s never met but undoubtedly knows her and her family, stuck wondering if he was interested in _her_ or all the rest of it. But it had always been her; she’d initially been fascinating just in the contrast, but as he’d talked to her Fred had gotten to see her sense of humor and her brilliant mind and caring heart, and been smitten with the whole package. 

That was, until she’d ended things between them, insisting that they’d never work across such a long distance, that she didn’t want to try. Maybe they’d only had 8 months, but he’d been all in, with all the conviction of youth that this was _it_ for them, in some kind star-crossed true love way. She was the first thing, besides his family, that he’d loved more than hockey; truthfully, he still hasn’t found anything or anyone else to match that. It’s hard to move on from that kind of heartbreak. Maybe it’s finally time he tried. 

The house he’s rented proves to be up a winding, hilly road lined with pine trees stretching in every direction. The seclusion is its own kind of calming - exactly what he needs, when the rest of the world feels like it’s going to hell in a handbasket. There’s something about being alone amongst the trees that feels comforting in a way that being alone in the city can never touch - almost like a hug. Or something else less weird-sounding. English was never his thing. The house itself is just a little two-bedroom cottage, but that’s more than enough space for just him. What’s more important is that there’s a TV and WiFi and plenty of blankets to bunker down with for however long this lasts. 

What he doesn’t expect is to see Anne Eliot - the same Anne Eliot who he thought had left Kellynch for good, who’d broken his heart - at the supermarket like any other local, presumably looking to stock up on supplies just like he is. He doesn’t think she spots him - Frederick ducks into another aisle as soon as he spots her - but just the briefest sight of her sets his heart beating faster in a way that he doesn’t really want to examine closer. 

(It would be ridiculous to still have feelings for her after all this time, even if that’s sure what it seems like.)

He tells himself that it’s just a fluke; that they won’t run into each other again; that they can avoid each other without any problems, given the situation. He is wrong on all counts. The cottage sits at the top of a hill, and on days where the fog hasn’t settled around the tops of the trees, he can see just a peek of a few houses and driveways down below. 

And just who should he happen to see wrestling with her trash bin one evening, but the woman herself?

(Some higher power really has it in for him, he’s certain of it.)

Still, they don’t call it _social distancing_ for nothing. It’s easy to avoid the people you don’t want to see when you don’t even leave your house. He naps a lot and catches up on Netflix and even attempts a puzzle that he finds in the hall closet (though it just winds up abandoned on the dining table). 

In eight years, though, he’d forgotten about the weather up here. It’s late March, technically spring; the worst of the snow should be over. _Should be over_ isn’t the same as _is over_ , though, and he’d forgotten about the late-March snowstorms that pop up more years than not. They’d had them in Minnesota, too; the locals there had always joked it was because of the college basketball tournament. Well, the NCAA tournament may have been cancelled, but the weather sure didn’t get that memo, as the flakes start falling huge, heavy, and fast just outside the windows, almost pretty in a way that’s only possible when you know you don’t have to go outside in the storm. 

Fate has other ideas, though. At least, Frederick has to believe it’s fate, otherwise this is all a cruel, cruel trick, and he doesn’t like to think about what he might have done to deserve that. Where he’s going with this is that the power goes out, knocking out the heat and the lights, as well as all those systems he’d been so thankful for until now. There’s a fireplace, but he hadn’t _planned_ for this, and there’s not enough logs and he doesn’t know where or how to chop more and as much of his life as he spends at an ice rink he is _not_ prepared to spend the night in these kind of temperatures without heat and —

— and when he looks out his window, he can just see a hint of light from Anne’s house, just hear the hum of a generator.

And he really doesn’t have any option at all but to throw himself on the mercy of the last woman he wants to see. 

———

Anne’s house is neat, from what Frederick can see - small, but cozy, with everything obviously in its very particular place. It reminds him of her, in a way, or at least the her he remembers - quietly comforting and well turned out. It’s exactly what he expected, somehow - just the kind of house he’d expect her to inhabit.

The woman herself, on the other hand, looks tired - vastly different than what he remembered. Anne is worn down, somehow, in a way that makes her look older than she is. Frederick supposes that’s what happens when she’s undoubtedly been carrying her family members in the way she always has; it would exhaust anyone, especially under pandemic circumstances. 

“Nice place,” he comments as Anne leads him towards a promised spare bedroom once he’s retrieved his bag - more out of an effort to fill the empty space than anything. Anne was always quiet, but this is just unnerving in its discomfort. They’d always been able to talk, or at least exist contentedly in the quiet; this is the opposite of all that. 

“Thanks,” she replies. “I like it.” Just the kind of response a person makes when they don’t know what the hell else to say. 

And maybe that’s what makes Fred dive straight into topics they should politely ignore - the absolute blandness of everything else they could say. 

“I didn’t expect to find you here,” he tells her foolishly. 

“In my own home, during quarantine?” She says it with a slight smile and the tone of voice she’s always used to hide her sense of humor, and suddenly Frederick is hit with a powerful wave of nostalgia. 

“No, _here_. Kellynch here.”

The amusement flits away just as quickly as it had appeared, the smile turning polite and wooden. Another look he vividly remembers. “I didn’t plan to come back, either,” she tells him softly, “but I like it here. I got out of school and there was a position open and… it was too good an opportunity to pass up. I’m a school nurse,” she clarifies. “Over at the elementary.” 

And that… fits, in a way he should have realized. She’d talked about going into nursing way back when, back when they were still practically kids, but this makes a lot more sense than trying to imagine Anne in some busy hospital. More tender, more stable. 

“I bet you’re great at that.”

“Thanks. I like it. You’re… good at your job, too,” she finishes awkwardly. 

(Even if the words are halting, uncomfortable, they send a little thrill through Frederick’s veins. Does that mean she’s watched, sometime in these past couple of years? They’re decidedly out of Rangers country and New York broadcasting range, way up here, but there are ways around that and she’d said…

Had she watched? For him?)

“Just doing my best,” he replies, just as uncomfortably. What a pair they make now. 

“I don’t know if you’ve eaten already, but I was about to make up some dinner,” Anne tells him - an abrupt, but welcome, change of subject. “I’d be happy to do up another serving if you like.”

“That’d be great, thanks.” He has no idea what kind of meal he’s committed to, but who the fuck cares; right now, it’s a way to get a moment to collect himself. 

“I’ll see you in a little bit then.” 

(If he’s not mistaken, Anne flees the room with just as much relief as he feels watching her go.)

(Kellynch was supposed to be his getaway, his haven - but right now, all it seems like is a terrible mistake as Frederick wonders what the fuck kind of situation he’s gotten himself into.) 

———

Dinner isn’t exactly an illustrious start to this whole thing, to say the least. Anne stresses about every step of making spaghetti - _spaghetti_ , for goodness sakes, jarred sauce and boxed noodles, nothing a normal person could possibly find a way to stress about - only to realize as soon as they sit down that this is what they really should have worried about: what in the world two people who have unwillingly been forced into the same space have to discuss. 

(“How’s your family?” he asks at one point - probably a subtle dig, if he’s remembering the same uncomfortable dinner that she is, in which her father had done his best to treat Frederick like an utter idiot. Fred had always thought she’d let them walk all over her, anyways - an accusation that isn’t far off.

“Mary is fine. She just got engaged to a lawyer,” Anne relates as neutrally as she can. “I don’t much talk with Walter or Elizabeth anymore.” There’s a variety of reasons for that - especially their tendency to never listen to a single word she’s ever said in her life and making snide comments about how she’d rather live in some backwoods nowhere than in someplace with _civilization_ like LA or New York - but the memory of the way they’d treated Frederick, and everyone else not like _them_ had contributed too. “And your sister?” That’s a safer topic; Sophie and Anne had liked each other. 

“She’s good. She lives down in Virginia now - her husband’s some big shot in the Navy.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”)

(And that had been the end of that feeble attempt at discussion.)

Anne thinks a lot that night about what she must have done to deserve this. Clearly, something terrible in some past life to have earned this particular variety of torment. Frederick is everything she remembered, only colder - not that she can blame him. After what she did, all those years ago, the way she broke them… she’s more than earned it. 

Still. She can be strong, Anne tells herself. She can remain detached, and collected, and unaffected by his presence. She’s had years of practice, after all, pretending that she still isn’t carrying a torch. 

(It was always a foolish idea to watch him play online - but then again, she’s always been a fool.)

It’s a little harder to keep up that calm facade, however, when Frederick is walking out of the bathroom in the morning with nothing more than sweatpants and wet hair. God, but he’s handsome, between that face and that wonderful smile and the fit frame he must be displaying just to taunt her, like a reminder of all she rejected. Naturally. It’s no more than she deserves. Her relief is near palpable when he emerges from the spare room in another bright blue t-shirt. 

It gets easier as the hours pass and one day bleeds into another. It’s not Frederick’s fault that she’s so shaken by his very presence, and he really is trying to be a good houseguest. He picks up after himself and helps with the dishes and doesn’t argue with whatever she puts on TV. It could be worse. 

Still, she can’t help but feel like everything from their past sits between them, unspoken, in every interaction. It’s the elephant in the room, the loudly unspoken words in every little mundane interaction they share. They can reach a point where they’re able to converse without the overt distrust and borderline hostility of where they started this, but comfort is too much to ask.

(Does he feel it too - the pressure of all the what-might-have-beens, pressing down upon them? Or is she the only one that’s haunted?)

She can do this - survive Frederick’s presence when every moment is a reminder of all she threw away. But that doesn’t mean it won’t just crush and kill her. 

———

Frederick finds that he doesn’t mind being cooped up with Anne, likes it much more than he anticipated or planned. It’s not that they _do_ much of anything - there’s limits in a small cottage like hers - but the companionship is nice. As it turns out, he was maybe lonelier than he’d wanted to admit. Even the stupid jigsaw puzzles go easier in her company; she’s got a system of sorting that Fred never would have had the patience to implement. 

Really, Anne is better equipped, literally and emotionally, for this whole isolation situation. Frederick has always needed to be out and active and _doing_ , little planning involved; Anne, on the other hand, has all the supplies she needs, and the temperament for these kinds of quiet, time-wasting tasks to boot. It’s so entirely in character; he should probably have guessed. Then again, he was trying very hard not to think of Anne until he was forced to show up at her door, practically begging for shelter. 

Anne, of course, has plenty of firewood, unlike him, stacked neatly under a tarp at the side of her garage where it’s protected from the elements. She lives here year-round, after all; unlike his own dumb ass, she obviously remembers that it’s not uncommon to receive snow all the way through March and into April, and planned accordingly. Her central heating works fine, obviously, but there’s something about this weather that calls for a roaring fire. Plus, retrieving the firewood gives Frederick a chance to think away from Anne and all her distraction.

He’s not sure what he expected of her - tears? Begging? Apologies? The kind of aloofness the rest of her family has so perfected? None of that is Anne; she’s always been too accepting of her circumstances, even to her own detriment. Once upon a time, Frederick had viewed that tendency with a kind of fond exasperation, had wanted to help her understand that she deserved more than she had always settled for; now it just makes him sad, and angry. She should feel _more_ than this, should be angry or distraught or _anything_ now that he’s here.

He should be paying more attention to the task at hand than the woman in the other room, unfortunately, as the end of a twig clipped off a log slices the skin of his palm as he deposits his load by the hearth, causing Frederick to hiss in surprise at the mild pain. It’s not a deep cut, or hurt that badly - he plays a contact sport for a living, for fuck’s sake, this is nothing - but he can already see blood starting to bead. After making sure the logs are stacked as best as he can one handed, Fred quickly crosses to the kitchen sink to rinse it out. Anne finds him moments later as he examines his hand for splinters. 

“Are you alright?” she asks, that soft voice filled with the kind of concern that sends a pang through his heart. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just scratched myself on one of the logs. No biggie.”

Still, Anne pulls his hand closer to examine the little cut herself - gently enough that he could easily pull away, but somehow, too tenderly for him to ever want to. This is her life now, Frederick realizes suddenly - scrapes and bruises and doubtless all other kinds of minor playground injuries that need more tenderness than true care. School nurse, after all. 

“I’ll get you something for that.”

“Oh, you don’t have to —” but it’s too late; Anne is already walking down the hall with her determined pace, disappearing into the bathroom. Resistance is futile, or something. Faintly, he hears the squeal of a cabinet hinge before Anne pads back into sight in her stockinged feet, carrying something he can’t quite make out clutched in her hand.

“Just a bit of neosporin,” she explains, tugging his hand back towards her to apply the cream before peeling open the wrapper of a band-aid - the skin-toned butterfly kind.

He nods towards the little adhesive. “What, no fun prints? I’m appalled.”

“Left all my princesses and superheroes back in my office at school,” she smiles back. “You’ll just have to make do, I suppose.”

“I guess I’ll make it, somehow.”

(When she smiles, the ridiculous urge to ask her to _kiss it better_ pops into his head with an ease that nearly frightens him. With a care that would impress even her, he shoves it back down.)

———

It gets easier to share the same space as the days drag on - to learn to expect another person in her space, to expect that other person to be _him_. It would be overstating the matter to say that she’s not affected by him anymore; indeed, Anne is almost painfully aware of his presence at every moment. But she can prepare to face it when she’s come to expect him, and that feels like a victory all its own. She is braced and ready, long since versed in ignoring and minimizing those feelings that still linger from so long ago. Frederick’s physical presence in her space is a complicating factor, but certainly one that she can overcome. 

If she can ignore the way her heart aches, it’s almost kind of nice, having him around. They fall into a pattern of meals and Netflix and quietly finding their own distraction in between. It’s the kind of mundane existence she could almost dream of sharing with him if she was foolish enough to entertain those thoughts.

(She can’t afford to be such a fool - not when it’s only a matter of time until the snow stops and the roads clear and he leaves once again. She likes her life as it is, and that will have to be enough.)

It’s probably inevitable that, on the fourth night, when the snow has finally let up but the temperatures have turned bitter and icy, they find themselves huddled up next to the fireplace with a strong drink apiece. Frederick sips on a glass of the nice whiskey Anne keeps in the back of a cabinet for occasions that call for a little something stronger, barely kissed with enough soda to call it a mixed drink; Anne, at least, pours the same stuff into a whole cup of tea. She’s never been much for liquor, especially straight, but there are occasions that call for it, and being cooped up with a man she never expected to see again is certainly one of them.

“What are the fucking odds?” Frederick declares after his second glass. “I come out here, trying to get away, and I find you. What are the odds.”

“Well, the last couple of years, I’d say pretty good. Since I live here and all.” He’s kind of cute like this - drunk and verbose. It’s something she never had a chance to see, before.

“Oh. Yeah. That.” He takes another swig. “Still. What are the odds that _I_ came back while you’re here?”

“It’s a mystery, I guess.” Maybe it’s the last few days; more likely, it’s the drink. Whatever the case, Anne finds herself telling Frederick something she should never admit. “I’m glad you’re here,” she tells him softly. “I… missed you.”

He tenses up at the words; not the reaction she expected, honestly. A feeling of dread starts to bloom in her stomach instead. “Really,” he comments, utterly flat. 

“Well… yes. Is that so hard to believe?”

“A little bit,” he tells her bluntly. “Especially since you’re the one that wanted me gone in the first place.”

“It was for the best.” For him, that is; this was never about her, anyways. 

“Was it now?” His laugh is bitter, utterly devoid of joy. 

“Frederick…”

“I just want to know what the hell is going on here,” Frederick demands, a liquored slur rounding out his consonants. “Because I’ve been here for days, and I can’t get my feet underneath me where you’re concerned. You sit there with that sad smile and you say _it’s for the best_ and yet you don’t seem happy. And I don’t fucking get it. _You’re_ the one who wanted to break up, but you don’t seem happy that we did.”

“I wasn’t,” Anne admits softly. “I’m not.”

“Then why? Because I’ve been trying to figure it out for nearly nine years, and all I’ve ever figured out is that you must not have felt anything. And after a week spent here, I don’t know that that’s true. So tell me, _why_?”

“I did it for _you!_ ” Anne finally bursts out, more a plea that a shout. “And I know that sounds like a lie and an excuse, but that’s why. We were so young, but God, I loved you. And you loved me, so much that you were about to throw away your chance at everything, ready to find some lesser school near Kellynch rather than taking Minnesota’s offer just so we’d be closer to each other. And I wanted it too - God, Frederick, you don’t know how much I wanted it, how close I was to letting you do that, because I wanted that too. I wanted you close. I loved you.

“But then… it wasn’t even some big game, but you wanted me there, so I went. And you looked _alive_ out there on the ice, throwing insults and elbows and grinning like a maniac. I realized… that’s who you were supposed to be. I couldn’t hold you back from that, just to keep you close to me. Minnesota was your path to the kind of career that would last. How could I ask you to throw away your future?”

“Why didn’t you just say that? We could have figured something out. Done the long distance thing, I don’t know.”

“And you would have been hopelessly distracted from the start. Your mind would have been halfway across the country when you needed to be focusing on hockey and classes and everything else.”

He doesn’t have any response to that, not that Anne expected one. Frederick has never been great at admitting to things he doesn’t like.

“It was never because I didn’t care enough, because I didn’t love you,” she finishes softly. “I did it because I could see everything you could be, and I love - I loved you too much to let you waste that.” God, Anne hopes he didn’t hear that slip of the tongue, even if it’s true. “We were _seventeen_ , Frederick. Kids. There was so much still ahead for you. I couldn’t be the reason you hindered your own dream, or even let it slip away. And you made it, didn’t you? You’ve reached that dream. No matter what I wanted for myself… I had to. For you, so you could have this.”

“I wanted you more than any dream.” Frederick has practically collapsed in on himself in the armchair, the very same one Anne was occupying when he’d showed up and shattered her quiet little world. It seems almost fitting that he sit there while she does the same. 

There’s no words for this; nothing that could make it better. Telling him _I wanted that too_ won’t fix what’s already been done, even if she wishes that was the case, even if that’s true. “Frederick…” she finally whispers for lack of anything else to say. 

It’s too late, though - though that’s not quite the right phrase, not when it was already _too late_ before this conversation even started, before he even showed up at her door in the snow. Now is just when he pries himself out of her armchair, standing with a finality that’s impossible to miss. “I’m tired, Anne,” he tells her. Anne doesn’t think she imagines an extra level of meaning to his words. “Goodnight.”

There’s nothing left to say - and no use saying it to an empty room anyways as she hears the spare bedroom door click shut down the hall. 

There’s no changing the past, but not enough words to explain it either.

———

The next morning, the roads are finally clear, and Frederick can go back up the road to his own cottage. Anne watches silently as Frederick emerges from the guest bedroom, his duffle bag in hand. The silence only becomes more tense as they stare at each other, the luggage a physical barrier between them, both blessed and cursed. 

“I suppose I should thank you,” Frederick finally says, breaking the silence. 

Anne shakes her head. “It was nothing. Basic kindness. You don’t need to thank me.”

(Can he see the way this pains her? Read the plea in her eyes - for forgiveness, for understanding?)

After another beat of silence, Frederick finally nods decisively, turning towards the door. “Take care, Anne.”

“You too, Frederick.” It feels final; it feels like a farewell, of a permanent kind. 

And then, with a last soft click of the door, he’s gone.

And Anne is left to herself again. 

———

He should feel peace, now that he’s back in his own space, away from Anne and every memory that she’s dredged up.

He doesn’t.

Because now, back alone in the little house at the top of the hill, Frederick once again has to face the particular kind of loneliness that comes with knowing that it doesn’t have to be this way.

What it all circles back to is this: he should feel smug. After all, this is everything he’d wished for in his most bitter moments over the years: Anne, all alone, with no real support system, just living a quiet little life of little note and, to all appearances, little true happiness. 

But it doesn’t feel good - not even remotely. How has he suffered? Sure, he hasn’t had her, but he got drafted, went to a top rate school, wound up playing hockey for a living in the NHL. By any measure, it’s a damn good life - all while Anne has been left to become the shell of herself he found four days ago. 

And that shouldn’t be his problem. Technically, you could argue that she brought this upon herself; dug a hole of her own making. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel… sad, he supposes, to see what she’s resigned herself to. Maybe a little guilty, even. 

And still, he can’t help but feel like there’s questions left unanswered. They’d talked plenty about the past, how they’d felt and why they’d acted the way they had, but that hadn’t touched on where they stand now. If there’s one thing he’s learned in these last few days, it’s that his own feelings aren’t nearly as dormant as he’s tried to convince himself all these years. If there’s any chance Anne might still feel the same… well, he owes it to them both to find out. 

This chapter of their history doesn’t seem quite finished yet, and Frederick knows exactly what he has to do. 

———

This time, she should have expected the knock on the door - social distancing be damned. 

It’s been three days since the storm’s finally stopped - three days since snowplows had cleared everything out, three days since Frederick had left, back to his own little house up the road.

She’d been content by herself for so long - happy with her plants and her books and all the little hobbies that take up her time in the evenings and weekends. Anne had even found a new kind of solitary contentment in the pandemic, discovering tasks to give her days purpose and goals. Frederick was here for a matter of days, not even a week; it’s absurd to think he could change any of that.

And yet somehow, he has.

Because Anne had been… content by herself for so long - not happy, per se, but satisfied - but the house feels empty now without him. Even when they’d barely talked, or were in separate rooms, he’d been there, the energy of another person making the whole house feel full. She’d grown used to him, she supposes; allowed herself to remember, for once, all the reasons she had loved him, and all the dreams she once had had of what a life together could have been like . 

She chose this life - here, in Kellynch, by herself. But for the first time in the only place that’s ever really been hers, she feels not just alone, but _lonely_. As much as she’s always claimed to like her life, just as it is, there’s no denying that the past days have illuminated all the ways that she’s been lying to herself. She tries to pass the time the same way she always has, but it’s just not the same; she even calls Mary at one point, hoping her sister’s dour moods might be an efficient distraction, but Mary is even more snippy than usual. It’s been days since Anne last called, and her sister feels an outsized outrage about the so-called abandonment; truthfully, Anne hadn’t even noticed it had been a week since her last call. Moreover, she finds that she doesn’t really care about Mary’s bad mood the way she always has, doesn’t feel the need to fix it or blame herself for the outburst. It’s easier just to hang up the phone. 

(Maybe this is the first step in moving on: accepting that you deserve more than you’ve ever settled for. That doesn’t stop the yearning; moving on isn’t the work of a couple days, especially when the man himself has only just exited her life again, and is staying just up the road.)

As if she’s summoned him, tires crunch on the drive outside, heralding his reappearance. It isn’t right, the way her heart lurches with happiness and hope and excitement when she peeks out the window to once again see his SUV, once again see him climbing out in that ridiculous blue hat and shuffle to her front door without once slipping on her icy walk. There’s a sense of déjà vu as Anne draws a deep breath before she opens the door. There’s only so many times she can go through this, be subjected to such a blast from the past, before it will eventually break her. And yet, like a fool, she keeps opening the door. 

“Can we talk?” Frederick asks. His hands are shoved deep in his pockets and his shoulders are hunched inwards, but there’s a look in his eyes that Anne is afraid to name. 

(It almost looks tender - almost looks like hope - but it will hurt far worse to be proved wrong if she allows herself to believe that.)

“Of course,” Anne says softly, stepping aside just enough to let him in. It touches a special little bit of her heart to see the way that Frederick carefully knocks the snow off his boots at the threshold as he pulls his hat off his head, trying his best not to track anything in to her rug and floors. It’s such a simple little thing, but it’s care for her home - and, in a way, care for her. More than she ever expected again from Frederick Wentworth. 

“Anne…” he begins, reaching out a hand for her, but she quickly takes a step back. Touch will be too much, too permanent a memory if this is the end. 

“I think we ought to keep a bit of distance,” she explains at his odd look. 

If anything, that only serves to confuse him further, his brow crinkling up in that endearing way she remembers. “We already spent days together. I think social distancing is kind of a lost cause, at least where we’re concerned.”

Anne shakes her head. “It’s not about the virus.”

She can see the moment it hits him, just exactly what she means by _distance_ , as he physically flinches with the realization. She can also see the moment he decides to plow forwards anyways with whatever he came to say. 

“I’ve been thinking, these last couple of days,” he tells her, “and I’ve had a lot of time to consider things. Everything you said and did, the other night and way back when. And I realized… I did a lot of talking about what I wanted, and what I felt. And in the middle of all that shouting, I never asked about what you wanted, or want, or how you felt. And you never told me, because that’s what you’re used to - people not caring enough to ask. That’s on me, and I’m sorry. But —” he swallows heavily, as if he’s forcing down the nerves he evidently feels — “but I’m asking now. I want to know what our break-up meant to you. Because the more I think about it, the harder it is for me to believe you did all this because you didn’t care.”

Anne fights the urge to turn away from Frederick; he deserves that much, after everything. Meeting his eyes is too much to ask, however, and she fixes her gaze instead just over his right shoulder, crossing her arms over her body protectively. “I loved you,” she tells him quietly. “I knew what I had to do, but I loved you. I hated every word that came out of my mouth.” Anne smiles sadly. “You weren’t the only one who wanted. You were the first person - the _only_ person to look at me and see something wonderful and worthwhile, and it killed me to throw that away. I’ve had to live with that ever since.”

“And now?”

Anne turns pleading eyes upon him, sure that every emotion is now splashed across her face and too distraught to care. How dare he do this? How dare he make her speak this into existence if he’s only about to crush it all? “Don’t make me say it,” she begs. 

“Please, Anne.” His voice is nearly as desperate - and that’s, ultimately, what breaks her, leaving the words to spill forth almost without her permission.

“And now… that doesn’t go away, you know. A love as big as that. You got to go be this success story, doubtless had all kinds of… distractions over the years, but when you have a quiet little life like mine, you don’t forget. It doesn’t go away. There’s a large part of my heart that is still yours - probably always will be - and I have to find a way to deal with that.”

“You still love me?”

Anne nods, whispering her response. “I do.”

She suddenly feels his hand trail down her arm, causing Anne to jerk abruptly to meet his eyes again. “Well that’s lucky,” he smiles down at her, achingly gentle, “because I haven’t forgotten either.”

Even as Anne’s heart lurches with hope, she shakes her head. “Don’t tease, Frederick. Don’t be that cruel.”

“I’m not,” he assures her, twining their fingers together. “Because you’re right, I’ve tried to distract myself, but… you have no idea just how unforgettable you are, Anne. How could anyone ever compare? And I tried so hard for so long to move on, to hate you, but I never could. You were a little spark in my heart that I could never quite stamp out. And now…” Frederick pauses as if to gather his breath, squeezing her hand as he does so. “And now, I hope I won’t have to.”

“You’d want that? You’d want to…” Even with new-found hope singing through her veins, Anne still hesitates to finish the sentence. This all feels like a wonderful dream; she’d hate to wake up and discover that’s all it was. 

“To try again?” he finishes. “Yeah. Yeah, I want that. The real question is… do you?”

And she does, she wants that so terribly much, so badly that it _aches_ , even as she hesitates. How could he want that, after everything she’s done? When their separation was her fault in the first place?

“I don’t deserve you,” Anne murmurs into the miniscule space between them, caving to the urge to brush his hair back from his face. It makes him smile, just a little bit, just a twitch of his lips, but that more than anything else sends a flood of peace rushing through her soul. 

“I think we deserve each other,” Frederick tells her in return, his voice almost unbearably soft. “I believe that, and somehow, I’m going to make you believe that too. _We_ deserve this, Annie.”

And he _kisses_ her, like he wants to, like he’s thought about it just as much as she has. His lips are soft against hers - just like she remembers, all those years ago - but there’s a surety to his hands now that wasn’t there before, in the way he pulls at her waist to bring her closer and his fingers thread through her hair with purpose. There’d been a handful of ill-advised attempts at dating in the past nine years, but nothing ever came close to this joyful swooping sensation in her stomach or the feelings of safety and love and _home_. That’s something only he can manage; something that only exists between the two of them. 

Her hands find their way to his chest as the kiss deepens, becomes more passionate, heads adjusting their position to allow tongues to tentatively begin to prod and search. Anne had known the difference 9 years had made on Frederick’s body, had seen with her own two eyes the way he’d filled out with more muscle, but feeling it is something else altogether, even through his shirt where his coat gaps open. It’s a reminder that they’re not the same - they’re older and more mature and have experienced different things than they had at 17. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes, change can be good; it’s brought them here, together, at what otherwise feels like the end of the world. 

Even as they break apart - to get a breath of air, to process what just happened - Frederick continues to stroke his thumb across the round of her cheek, like he can’t bear to stop touching her. It warms her heart in a whole new way, like it’s proof that he meant every word he told her - as if she needs any more after that kiss. It would be easy to let herself get swept away on that little touch, perhaps into another wonderful kiss, but Anne forces herself to meet his eyes. 

“ _Stay_.” It’s more than a question, but less than a demand - a plea, the dearest wish of her heart that she’s never admitted, now given voice. 

“For as long as you want me, Annie.” His voice is tender and husky as he smiles down at her. “Because I really don’t want to ever leave you again.”

And that’s awfully lucky, as Anne doesn’t ever intend to let him go again. 

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted on tumblr, where I'm @shireness-says and mostly play in a different fic sandbox. 
> 
> Thanks for reading - let me know what you think!


End file.
